Science shows no link between games and violence

Karen Sternheimer & Michael D. Gallagher

The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments on a 2005 California law that bans the sale of allegedly violent video games to minors based on the premise that violence in video games causes children to become violent. In fact, despite claims to the contrary, there is no valid or reliable scientific evidence that virtual violence causes real-world violence. In order to uphold the law, the court must accept this premise. But the premise is false.

In rejecting the California law, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared that California “has not produced substantial evidence ... that violent video games cause psychological or neurological harm to minors.” The court said the research presented by the state’s lead expert witness, Dr. Craig Anderson, “has readily admitted flaws that undermine” California’s case for regulating video games sales to minors.

In fact, there is a mass of compelling scholarship that challenges the linkage. One recent example is a 2009 study by professors at Texas A&M University that found no support “for either a causal or correlational link between violent media and subsequent aggression in viewers.”

Similarly, in their 2008 book, “Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth about Video Games and What Parents Can Do,” Harvard Medical School professors Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson wrote: “The strong link between video game violence and real world violence, and the conclusion that video games lead to social isolation and poor interpersonal skills, are drawn from bad or irrelevant research, muddle-headed thinking and unfounded, simplistic news reports.”

Eighty-two social scientists filed a legal brief with the Supreme Court asking that the California law be rejected. They wrote, “California’s ban on the sale and rental of violent video games to minors is based on profoundly flawed research and disregards recent empirical evidence contradicting the harm to minors that California asserts arises from the playing of violent video games (or any other harm).”

That is the science; now consider the logic. According to federal crime statistics compiled during the last 15 years, as video game popularity soared in this country, the rate of violent youth crime decreased dramatically – exactly the opposite of what would occur if a meaningful causal link existed.

This is not the first time lawmakers have tried to pin our societal problems on new forms of entertainment media. Movies, comic books and rock-and-roll all served as past scapegoats for complex social issues. It is tempting to do so, but allowing false assumptions to serve as the basis for public policy or constitutional law is not healthy for a democratic society.

In this case, the state is using these flawed assumptions that would potentially burden law enforcement with “culture police” responsibilities. If upheld, this law would ultimately do nothing to reduce actual rates of violence in the United States. Victims of violence deserve laws and policies that address the real causes, like substance abuse, family violence and neighborhood instability. Focusing on video games is a political red herring.

We hope the U.S. Supreme Court will consider the logical flaws within this law in its deliberations and do what other federal courts did: declare California’s video game law unconstitutional.